The EU coronavirus fund will take Europe another step towards disintegration | Yanis Varoufakis

The EU coronavirus fund will take Europe another step towards disintegration | Yanis Varoufakis

During the early years of the eurozone crisis, I remember gauging its depths by the rapidly diminishing half-life of the celebrations that followed every European Union summit. Premature proclamations that the crisis was over inspired hope, which caused the money markets to rebound. But then, at some point, gloom would unfailingly return. As the years of austerity for the many and socialism for the few ground on, that point arrived sooner after each EU summit.

Could it be that, at long last, this sad pattern has been broken by last week's summit, which resulted in a brand new, €750bn post-pandemic EU recovery fund?

Ignoring the predictably triumphant reception by the usual EU cheerleaders, hope that this time the EU may have got it right comes from smart critics of the leaders' track record, such as my friend Shahin Vallée who described the recovery fund as "a leap towards genuine integration“.

It is not the size of the fund that gives commentators like Vallée hope. It is, rather, the fact that for the first time EU leaders seem to have acknowledged the indispensability of a common debt as the glue of any monetary union. True enough, the €750bn will be borrowed jointly by member